Typical sawtooth unfolding pattern of a single molecule of the HIV virion protein GP160. Unfolding forces can be extracted from the sawtooth pattern by applying the worm like chain model.</font>'''

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Rupture forces were measured as 79.6 ± 3.9 pN and 81.3 ± 3.8 pN for the terraces and lower regions, respectively. These forces are much lower than those measured for unfolding of isolated proteins on mica, which were above 160 pN. The lower unfolding forces suggest that GP160 is considerably easier to unfold when aggregated than isolated.</font>'''